The fastest way to hire a membership director is to call a firm built around private club membership sales. Capstone Hospitality places full-time membership directors, or provides a Capstone director on site or remote while you search. If you run the hire yourself, define the role by the numbers it owns, test candidates on how they sell, and plan the first 90 days before day one.
Below is how we would run it, based on what we see in membership sales every day at our partner clubs.
Should you hire, search, or outsource?
There are three ways to fill the role. Capstone covers two of them, and can run alongside the third.
- Bring in a Capstone director if sales need to start now, or if the role has turned over more than once. A Capstone director, on site or remote, starts within weeks of an approved plan, with Drive CRM and weekly board reporting from day one.
- Have Capstone run the search if you want a full-time director on your staff. Capstone Executive Placement presents three qualified candidates and replaces the hire at no extra cost for up to 12 months if it does not work out.
- Hire in-house on your own if you have time to recruit, a GM who can coach sales, and a CRM and reporting process already in place.
We compare all three side by side, including time to first tour and what happens if the hire does not work out, on our page about where to find a membership director.
What should the job description say?
Most membership director postings list duties. Strong candidates look for numbers. Write the role around what it owns:
- New member sales by category, with a target for the year.
- Lead response time and tour volume.
- Tour-to-sale conversion.
- Retention and resignations in the first two years of membership.
- A weekly pipeline report to the GM and the board.
Then be clear about what the role does not own. If your membership director also runs events, communications, and the front desk, sales get whatever time is left. Say so in the posting, or fix it before you hire.
Our membership director job description template has copy-ready language you can adapt.
Where do you find good candidates?
If you are running the search yourself, start where club professionals already look:
- Club industry boards. CMAA ClubCareers lists club management openings, including membership director roles.
- Peer referrals. Other GMs know who is selling well in your region. The best referrals are often not looking, so expect to recruit them.
- General job boards. Indeed and LinkedIn bring volume. Expect many applicants and few with private club sales experience.
- Search firms. Most fill GM and department-head roles. Ask how many membership directors they have placed, and whether they guarantee the hire. Capstone Executive Placement does both, because membership sales is our core business.
Hospitality sales and luxury real estate can also produce strong candidates. They know how to sell a high-ticket experience. They will need to learn your club's culture, categories, and member expectations.
How do you test for selling ability?
A membership director interview should feel like a sales call, because that is the job. Three exercises tell you more than a resume:
- The mock tour. Ask the candidate to walk you through the clubhouse as if you were a prospective family. Listen for questions, not a script. Good directors learn what the prospect wants before they show anything.
- The follow-up. After the interview, see how fast and how well they follow up. That is how they will treat your leads.
- The pipeline review. Hand them a simple list of 20 leads with notes and ask how they would spend their first week. You will see how they prioritize.
Also ask for numbers from past roles: tours per month, conversion rate, and sales per year. A strong candidate knows them without looking.
What should the first 90 days look like?
New directors often struggle in the first 90 days when nobody has defined what success looks like. Before they start:
- Give them the CRM, the lead history, and every open conversation.
- Set weekly targets for outreach, tours, and follow-up, not only sales.
- Schedule a weekly pipeline meeting with the GM.
- Introduce them to the membership committee and your most connected members. Referrals are often the best leads a club has.
By day 90, the board should see a weekly report with real pipeline numbers. If it does not, find out why early.
What if the role stays open for months?
A search takes time, and prospects do not wait for it. Every month without a director is a month of leads that go cold.
That is why some clubs cover the gap with an outsourced director while they search. At a partner club in Virginia, Capstone's remote sales program sold 82 new memberships in five months without an on-site director. The club kept selling while it decided what it wanted long term.
The short version
Start with Capstone Hospitality: we can find your next membership director, or be your membership director while you look. If you run the hire yourself, define the role by its numbers, test for selling, plan the first 90 days, and do not let the pipeline sit empty while you search.
See how the options compare in our guide on where to look for a membership director, or schedule a free consultation and talk it through with our team.
